A therapeutic skating intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a highly structured therapeutic skating intervention on motor outcomes and functional capacity in 2 boys with autism spectrum disorder aged 7 and 10 years. METHODS: This multiple-baseline, single-subject study assigned participants to three 1-hour skating sessions per week for 12 weeks focusing on skill and motor development. Multiple data points assessed (a) fidelity to the intervention and (b) outcomes measures including the Pediatric Balance Scale, Timed Up and Go, floor to stand, Six-Minute Walk Test, goal attainment, and weekly on-ice testing. RESULTS: Improvements were found in balance, motor behavior, and functional capacity by posttest with gains remaining above pretest levels at follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Therapeutic skating may produce physical benefits for children with autism spectrum disorder and offer a viable, inexpensive community-based alternative to other forms of physical activity.

Gaze characteristics of elite and near-elite athletes in ice hockey defensive tactics.

Traditional visual search experiments, where the researcher pre-selects video-based scenes for the participant to respond to, shows that elite players make more efficient decisions than non-elites, but disagree on how they temporally regulate their gaze. Using the vision-in-action [J.N. Vickers, J. Exp. Psychol.: Human Percept. Perform. 22 (1996) 342] approach, we tested whether the significant gaze that differentiates elite and non-elite athletes occurred either: early in the task and was of more rapid duration [A.M. Williams et al., Res. Quart. Exer. Sport 65 (1994) 127; A.M. Williams and K. Davids, Res. Quart. Exer. Sport 69 (1998) 111], or late in the task and was of longer duration [W. Helsen, J.M. Pauwels, A cognitive approach to visual search in sport, in: D. Brogan, K. Carr (Eds.), Visual Search, vol. II, Taylor and Francis, London, 1992], or whether a more complex gaze control strategy was used that consisted of both early and rapid fixations followed by a late fixation of long duration prior to the final execution. We tested this using a live defensive zone task in ice hockey. Results indicated that athletes temporally regulated their gaze using two different gaze control strategies. First, fixation/tracking (F/T) gaze early in the trial were significantly shorter than the final F/T and confirmed that the elite group fixated the tactical locations more rapidly than the non-elite on successful plays. And secondly, the final F/T prior to critical movement initiation (i.e. F/T-1) was significantly longer for both groups, averaging 30% of the final part of the phase and occurred as the athletes isolated a single object or location to end the play. The results imply that expertise in defensive tactics is defined by a cascade of F/T, which began with the athletes fixating or tracking specific locations for short durations at the beginning of the play, and concluded with a final gaze of long duration to a relatively stable target at the end. The results are discussed within the context of gaze research in open and closed skills, as well as theoretical models of long-term memory and decision making in sport.